I'm worried today.

My 8 year old son has been having bowel problems for awhile now, along with mouth ulcers and joint pain.

So, he sees the peadatrician in an hour and half and he will give me his opinion on whether he thinks he has crohn's and needs further tests!

I really hope he doesn't thin he has it, I mean an adult can just about cope with this disease, imagine a child's life with it?

Well...............

He can't say for sure yet but he has got bowel issues going on. I have to take him back in 4 months, but if he has any bowel flare ups in between then i have to take him back straight away.

At the last appointment they took his blood and i got the results today, his ESR level is normal which is a very good sign!

Hi Sharon76:

Excuse me for stepping in, but could you be more specific? What kind of problems has your boy been having? Couldn't a change in his diet fix the problem? What does he normally eat and drink? How many times/meals a day?

Thanks.

Cheers,

JC

I sure hope he doesn't have crohns also Sharon. I agree that adults can hardly deal with it let alone kids. Does anyone else in your family have it? When I was first diagnosed we thought I was the only one and know some of my first cousins have been diagnosed with it and possibly my sister and my daughter is showing some signs but she is 22 now. On another note I was diagnosed with it by colonoscopy and biopsy but my blood work rarely shows it when its active. I've asked different GI's about that because I didn't think that could happen and they said it is entirely possible to be in a flare but the blood work to be normal. Needless to say its interesting when I have to see a doc I'm not familiar with and try to explain that too him/her!

Hi Jose

My son goes through stages of feeling fine then a few weeks later, he suffers from bad diarrhea, anemia, tiredness, joint pain, abdomen pain and not wanting to do anything. His diet cosists of fruit and veg daily, i make sure my children get the 5 portions of fruit and veg, they have the fibre in different meals. The fluid intake is restricted as they are at school during the day and they are not allowed to disrupt the class to go to the water fountain. Which i completely disagree and i am taking it up with the head master! There is only so much fluid i can give him from the period of home time and bedtime. I have always been concerned about the fluid intake in school. Also, they are alllowed to use the toilet at certain times. He has his three meals a day and a snack before bedtime, sometimes they will fruit or carrot sticks in between meals if they are hungry.



Hi twisten

No one in my family has it apart from me. The doctor said today that he can't rule out crohn's with my son as i have it and he is showing signs of bowel problems. That is odd that your blood work comes back fine..............before i found out i had crohn's my bloodwork was always coming back messed up, all the markers were messed up. And it stayed that way until i had my surgery, then as soon as i had surgery they took blood and all my results were great!!! Amazing. Like you, i had problems with doctors when i had to explain always that i dont know whats wrong with me but my blood work always comes back odd.

Hi

All of my family tend to eat more raw veg than cooked, we prefer the taste. We eat alot of meat, not red meat, only white.

Normal eating plan......

Breakfast at 7:45.........shredded wheat or weetabix

Lunch.......... sandwich with cucumber,tomatoes,ham,tun,mayo,gherkins (not all at once,varies from each day) a drink of fruit juice, a chocolate snack

Main meal............anything i cook which is almost always homemade food, could be spag bolognese, lasagna, tuna and pasta, curry, stew, chili, shepherds pie etc


I don't allow the children fizzy drinks and they eat crisps now and again.

I give them a snack before bed as it is just like myself or my husband having a slice of toast for supper


I am very fussy with the children's diet as i don't like it when children are allowed junk food as it just causes medical problems in the future.

Hi

All of my family tend to eat more raw veg than cooked, we prefer the taste. We eat alot of meat, not red meat, only white.

Normal eating plan......

Breakfast at 7:45.........shredded wheat or weetabix

Lunch.......... sandwich with cucumber,tomatoes,ham,tun,mayo,gherkins (not all at once,varies from each day) a drink of fruit juice, a chocolate snack

Main meal............anything i cook which is almost always homemade food, could be spag bolognese, lasagna, tuna and pasta, curry, stew, chili, shepherds pie etc


I don't allow the children fizzy drinks and they eat crisps now and again.

I give them a snack before bed as it is just like myself or my husband having a slice of toast for supper


I am very fussy with the children's diet as i don't like it when children are allowed junk food as it just causes medical problems in the future.

Hi Sharon:

I am a foreigner and I am not in America, so I don't have a clear idea of what shredded wheat or weetabix is. Is it anything like muesli? or cereal flakes to be taken with milk? In terms of a possible Chron's Disease, I would avoid such and give instead a more "traditional" breakfast: a warm beverage (without milk) + toast (if there is no gluten intolerance) with poached egg OR ripe bananas (if there is).

Your lunch looks fine, but I would avoid mixing fruit or fruit juice with other foods. In this case, I would skip the tomatoes and the fruit drink. Tomatoes, strictly speaking, are fruit. In general, fruit is not well digested in the presence of carbs, and this association may lead to digestive problems. Also, I would try to follow this pattern: one kind of carb (bread or potatoes or rice) + one kind of animal protein (chicken, fish or eggs) + raw veggies (but not too much and not too great a variety) + chocolate snack (milk-free is best).

Your dinner is ok, but I would skip the bedtime snack. Instead, I would give a fruit snack, if they are hungry, around 4:30 PM, and serve dinner one or two hours later including a little homemade dessert (to avoid frustration). It may be hard to break the habit of this late snack, but I think it is worth while trying. By giving it, you are simply giving their stomachs an extra job and possibly interfering with the digestion of the dinner, if you see what I mean. From a nutritional point of view, they don't need it, Sharon.

See, I am not telling you what to do, just sharing things I have learned through reading and trial and error. :)

Best to you and your family,

JC

I do agree that some GIs say to lower your fiber intake if you inflammatory bowel problems - not necessarily other types of problems. Why has the doctor not scoped your son? That would give you a clear diagnosis and perhaps a dr might put your son on a short course of steroids to make him feel better.

Also, some of the research now suggests that if you are a parent with crohns you should have your children on probiotics at a very early age (even curshing the powder into baby bottles - of course get your own dr's advice before doing that)

I personally agree with freguent meals and the night time snack (I would suggest cottage cheese - unless he is lactose intolerant of course). I was diagnosed with Crohns disease a few yrs back and now have no symptoms. Of course, it is very difficult to find the cause of that as it is a disease that can go into spontaneous remission. However, my personal opinion is that the more often you get food into your stomach (especially yogurts) you are repopulating the intestinal bacteria that is said to be lacking in IBD patients.

Best of luck

Hi Sharon,
I don't blame you for being worried.The mouth ulcers and joint pains don't sound good. I have never hadbad blood work myself with all the years I have Crohns and all the sugeries my blood work has always be fairly normal. So thats not always a good indicator of Crohns. Stress can play a big part in it. you mention that at school they are allowed to use the bath room at certain times. I remember grammer school way to well and having to go and not beinag allowed to. It only made it worse and sure added major stress. Is your son worried that he will have to go and the teachers saying not now? if so then you need to take a stand with the school and say look he has bowel problems it runs in the family and when he asks to go he has to!
I understand you wanting your kids to eat healthy. But raw veggies and Crohns really don'tmix. thats the one thing that about kills me always has salads, carrots, cukes. maybe try to have more cooked then raw. It might help
Keeping my fingers crossed for you that your son doesn't have Crohns.

Hi Garden

Sometimes my son does worry about asking for the bathroom and he may get shouted at, i have taken it up with the school on several occasions, and when i do they are fine for about a week but then they start slamming down the rules again.

I understand the raw veggies and crohns but he also suffers from overflow diarrhea, so i worry that this may happpen again, when my crohn's flares up i go on a low residue diet and it does help abit, i have tried this low residue diet with my son when he is ill and he feels better, as soon as he goes back on a normal fibre diet he starts getting ill. SO, with me giving him the raw veggies his body seems to be dealing with them ok and it keeps him going to the bathroom as it should. Yep i understand where you are coming from with the salads.......i love salads and i really do miss them, i see people eating them it would make it worse for me! At the moment he is doing well :) but at one point he did miss alot of school because he was to unwell to go in.


Hi Lucky

The doctor doesn't want to do a scope yet, and to be honest i'm happy with that as it is very invasive for a child. At the moment the doctor is monitoring him with reassurance that if he has a flare up in between his next appointment to take him straight back. I have tried him on probiotics and he got bad bloating on them so i took him off them, i still have them in the house. Like you said lucky it is difficult to find what foods trigger it, i have found with me that any food upsets my digestive system.......dairy meat rice veg fruit..........anything.


Thank you for your replies..........i have to go coz i have to drink 3 pints of water before 10am as i have my ultrasound!!!! :dizzy:

I changed my sons diet, increased the amount of fibre, added grains to his diet for roughage, increased his fluid intake adn he has gone downhill.

He was sick over the weekend three times, we couldn't go shopping because it was hurting his stomach when he was walking around, he's got diarrhea again. I know it isn't a stomach bug he's picked up.

I am going to change his diet, i am going to put him on a low residue diet and see if there is any improvement, which i think there will be. When i think about it (like i have been doing all morning) if i allow him to eat regular food, for example chips, pie etc his bowels are fine and he has no pain in his abdomen but within a few days of him eating veg and fruit he gets ill. Last night i gave him some grapes and he is worse today. But he can deal with raw veg.

Now, anyone who has crohn's will know that during a flare up all fruit with skin has to be avoided........so you tell me, i gave him grapes and he is worse today, he also had wholemeal bread with the grains yesterday. he also goes through stages of losing his appetite then getting it back.

I have rang his peadatrician today and i am waiting for him to ring me back, i just want the ok to go along with the low residue diet.

I am just so worried at the moment and i really want to cry. I know that this isn't going to do my crohn's any good, me worrying and the stress of it, but a parent can't help worrying. I'm just at a loss as to what to do for the best, i don't want to keep messing around with his diet.

My heart goes out to you and your son Sharon. Bad enough you have to deal with crohns let him possibly too. The only thing any doc or digestive specialist has ever told me about diet is when in a flare go to low fibre diet and when not in one maintain high fibre diet. I sure hope the doc gives you some answers and help.

Alarm bells have now started ringing!!! I just picked my son up from school and i asked him if he had diarrrhea today and he said yes just the once, which is a good sign, but he then said " it was a funny colour mum, it was grey"

This can be a number of things but one that sticks out like a sore thumb with me is malabsorption. I hope his doctor rings me very soon. My son seems well in himself today, didn't eat much at school but he looks well.

I am so worried, i can't take him to the emergency department coz they will just send him home without testing due to him looking well in himself, but i know something is wrong!!

Sharon I'm so sorry that you are having to deal with your recent surgery and now this terrible worry about your son. Maybe its more of a IBS for him at this point. Do you think maybe he has been worried about you with your recent health problems? And possibly this stress has set his stomache problems off?
I know both my sons had alot of stomache issues when I had my surgeries.They didn't come out and say how concerned and scared they where at the time.It showed more in their stomache issues diareah. sick to their stomache feeling. Now that they are older we can talk about it more and they feel that yes they where worried and probably the stress did cause alot of their problems.They both seem to have very delicate stomaches ,bowels. And no Crohns found yet with them but symptoms off and on alot.

Hi GArden

I don't think it is the stress that has set this up, he has had bowel problems for a couple of years now. But, i can't rule it out completely, a person never can with these things.

I spoke to his doctor yesterday and he has given me the all clear to change his diet to a low residue one and see how he is on that. So his diet has been changed and i'm going to keep him on this diet for a few weeks and see if there is any improvemnt. His doctor wants me to let him know how my son gets on, then take things from there.